Introduction

aria2 is lightweight, command-line download manager featuring support for HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, BitTorrent and Metalink protocols. aria2 is generally regarded as one of the lightest and fastest download managers available and across multiple platforms. Some of the more outstanding features of aria2 include great flexibility of layout through the use of numerous options and configuration files and a built-in XML-RPC management interface.

Set a maximum of four (4) connections to each server per file. (Default: 1)

min-split-size=5M

Only split the file if the size is larger than 2*5MB = 10MB. (Default: 20M)

on-download-complete=exit

Run the exit command and exit the shell once the download session is complete.

Additional Notes

1--file-allocation=falloc

Recommended for newer file systems such as ext4 (with extents support), btrfs or xfs as it allocates large files (GB) almost instantly. Do not use falloc with legacy file systems such as ext3 as prealloc consumes approximately the same amount of time as standard allocation would while locking the aria2 process from proceeding to download.

Tip: See aria2c -help#all and the aria2 man page for a complete list of configuration options.

Useful Tips & Tricks

pacman XferCommand

Custom Minimal Build

Gains in application response can be gleaned by removing unused features and protocols. Further gains can be accomplished by removing support for external libraries with a custom build. The following example creates an Template:Filename executable with HTTP/HTTPS and FTP download support only. See the Arch Build System page for further details.